Developmental Psychology

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Developmental Psychology

• Psychology A Concise Introduction
• Richard Griggs
• Chapter 7

Prepared byJ. W. Taylor V
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Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development

• Piaget did not conduct formal experiments, but
  rather loosely structured interviews in which he
  posed problems for children to solve, observed
  their actions carefully, and questioned them
  about their solutions
• Was particularly interested in childrens error,
  which would provide insights into childrens
  thought processes
• Assumed that a child is an active seeker of
  knowledge and gains an understanding of the world
  by operating on it

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Schemas

• Organized units of knowledge about objects,
  events, and actions
• Cognitive adaptation involves two processes
• Assimilation is the interpretation of new
  experiences in terms of present schemes
• Accommodation is the modification of present
  schemes to fit with new experiences

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Schemas

• For example, a child may call all four-legged
  creatures doggie
• The child learns he needs to accommodate (i.e.,
  change) his schemes, as only one type of
  four-legged creature is dog
• It is through accommodation that the number and
  complexity of a childs schemes increase and
  learning occurs

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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
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Sensorimotor Stage

• Infant learns about the world through their
  sensory and motor interactions (including
  reflexes)
• Lack object permanence, the knowledge than an
  object exists independent of perceptual contact
• Symbolic representation of objects and events
  starts to develop during the latter part of the
  sensorimotor stage (e.g., use of telegraphic
  speech)

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Preoperational Stage

• The childs thinking becomes more symbolic and
  language-based, but remains egocentric and lacks
  the mental operations that allow logical thinking
• Egocentrism is the inability to distinguish ones
  own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings from
  those of others
• Cannot perceive the world from another persons
  perspective
• The child, however, can pretend, imagine, and
  engage in make-believe play

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Preoperational Stage

• Conservation is the knowledge that the
  quantitative properties of an object (such as
  mass, volume, and number) remain the same despite
  changes in appearance
• Some grasp of conservation marks the end of the
  preoperational stage and the beginning of the
  concrete-operational stage
• The liquid/beakers problem is a common test of
  conservation ability

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Preoperational Stage

• A major reason why a preoperational child does
  not understand conservation is that the child
  lacks an understanding of reversibility, the
  knowledge that reversing a transformation brings
  about the conditions that existed before the
  transformation
• Childs thinking also reflects centration, the
  tendency to focus on only one aspect of a
  problem at a time

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Tests of Conservation
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Concrete Operational Stage

• Children gain a fuller understanding of
  conservation and other mental operations that
  allow them to think logically, but only about
  concrete events
• Conservation for liquids, numbers, and matter
  acquired early, but conservation of length
  acquired later in the stage
• Develops transitivity (e.g., if A B, and B C,
  then A C)
• Develops seriation, the ability to order stimuli
  along a quantitative dimension (e.g., a set of
  pencils by their length)
• The reasoning of concrete operational children is
  tied to immediate reality (i.e., what is in front
  of them and tangible) and not with the
  hypothetical world of possibility

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Formal Operational Stage

• The child gains the capacity for
  hypothetical-deductive thought
• Can engage in hypothetical thought and in
  systematic deduction and testing of hypotheses

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Formal Operational Stage

• In one scientific thinking task, the child is
  shown several flasks of what appear to be the
  same clear liquid and is told one combination of
  two of these liquids would produce a clear liquid
• The task is to determine which combination would
  produce the blue liquid
• The concrete operational child just starts mixing
  different clear liquids together haphazardly
• The formal operational child develops a
  systematic plan for deducing what the correct
  combination must be by determining all of the
  possible combinations and then systematically
  testing each one

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Formal Operational Stage

• The formal operational child can evaluate the
  logic of verbal statements without referring to
  concrete situations
• For example, the formal operational child would
  judge the statement If mice are bigger than
  horses, and horses are bigger than cats, then
  mice are bigger than cats to be true, even
  though in real life mice are not bigger than
  cats

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Evaluation of Piagets Theory

• Recent research has shown that rudiments of many
  of Piagets key concepts (e.g., object
  permanence) may begin to appear at earlier stages
  than Piaget proposed
• For example, research that involved tracking
  infants eye movements has found that infants as
  young as 3 months continue to stare at the place
  where the object disappeared from sight,
  indicating some degree of object permanence

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Evaluation of Piagets Theory

• Not all people reach formal operational thought
• The theory may be biased in favor of Western
  culture
• There is no real theory of what occurs after the
  onset of adolescence
• Despite refinements, recent research has indeed
  shown that cognitive development seems to proceed
  in the general sequence of stages that Piaget
  proposed

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Moral Development and Social Development

• Kohlbergs theory of moral reasoning
• Attachment and parenting styles
• Eriksons psychosocial theory of development

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Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Reasoning

• Built on an earlier theory of moral reasoning
  proposed by Piaget, using a series of stories
  that involved moral dilemmas to assess a persons
  level of moral reasoning
• Discerned three levels of moral reasoning based
  on responses to the stories and the reasoning
  behind the responses given

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Kohlbergs Levels of Moral Reasoning

• At the preconventional level of moral reasoning,
  the emphasis is on avoiding punishment and
  looking out for your own welfare and needs
• Moral reasoning is self-oriented
• At the conventional level of moral reasoning,
  moral reasoning is based on social rules and laws
• Social approval and being a dutiful citizen are
  important
• At the highest level, the postconventional level
  of moral reasoning, moral reasoning is based on
  self-chosen ethical principles
• Human rights taking precedent over laws the
  avoidance of self-condemnation for violating such
  principles

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Kohlbergs Levels of Moral Reasoning
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Kohlbergs Levels of Moral Reasoning
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Kohlbergs Levels of Moral Reasoning
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Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Reasoning

• Kohlberg proposed that we all start at the
  preconventional level as children and as we
  develop, especially cognitively, we move up the
  ladder of moral reasoning
• The sequence is uniform however, not everyone
  reaches the postconventional level

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Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Reasoning

• Shortcomings of Kohlbergs theory
• Studied moral reasoning and not moral behavior
• May not have adequately represented the morality
  of women
• The higher stages may be biased toward Western
  cultures

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Attachment and Parenting Styles

• Attachment is the lifelong emotional bond that
  exists between the infants and their mothers or
  other caregivers, formed during the first six
  months of life

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Attachment and Harlows Monkeys

• Harry Harlow separated infant monkeys from their
  mothers at birth and put them in cages containing
  two inanimate surrogate mothers, one made of
  wire and one made of terry cloth

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Attachment and Harlows Monkeys

• Half of the monkeys received their nourishment
  from a milk dispenser in the wire and half from a
  dispenser in the terry cloth mother
• All of the monkeys preferred the cloth monkey
  regardless of which monkey provided their
  nourishment
• The monkeys being fed by the wire mother would
  only go to the wire mother to eat and then return
  to the cloth mother
• Thus, contact comfort, not reinforcement from
  nourishment, was the crucial element for
  attachment formation

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Attachment and Harlows Monkeys
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Parenting Styles
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Parenting Styles

• An authoritative parenting style seems to have
  the most positive effect on cognitive and social
  development
• Children are the most independent, happy,
  self-reliant, and academically successful of the
  four parenting styles

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Eriksons Psychosocial Theory of Development

• Emphasized the impact of society and culture upon
  development
• Lead to an increase in research on life-span
  development
• Criticized for the lack of solid experimental
  data to support it
• Eight stages of development, each with a major
  issue or crisis that has to be resolved
• Each stage is named after the two sides of the
  issue relevant in that stage

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Eriksons Psychosocial Theory of Development
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Eriksons Psychosocial Theory of Development
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Eriksons Psychosocial Theory of Development
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Eriksons Psychosocial Theory of Development
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Eriksons Psychosocial Theory of Development

• Probably the greatest impact of Eriksons theory
  is that it expanded the study of developmental
  psychology past adolescence into the stages of
  adulthood (young, middle, and late)
• The sequence in the theory (intimacy issues
  followed by identity issues) turns out to be the
  most applicable to men and career-oriented women
• Many women may solve these issues in reverse
  order or simultaneously
• For example, a woman may marry and have children
  and then confront the identity issues when the
  children become adults